Science News

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Thursday night carrying Israel's first lunar lander on a mission that if successful will make the Jewish state only the fourth nation to achieve a controlled touchdown on the moon's surface.

A Japanese space probe named after a falcon, Hayabusa 2, has touched down on an asteroid more than 300 million km (186 million miles) from Earth on a mission to seek clues about the origins of life, Japan's space agency said on Friday.

NASA has warned SpaceX and Boeing Co of design and safety concerns for their competing astronaut launch systems, according to industry sources and a new government report, threatening the U.S. bid to revive its human spaceflight program later this year.

Scientists are providing new evidence to answer the longstanding question about why zebras have stripes. It appears stripes make terrible landing strips, bamboozling the fierce blood-sucking flies that try to feast on zebras and carry deadly diseases.

Israel's first spacecraft designed to land on the moon is set to blastoff from Florida on Thursday in the first privately-funded lunar mission, as the Jewish state seeks to become only the fourth nation to reach the surface of Earth's natural satellite.

NASA said on Friday it was weighing an option to buy two additional astronaut seats aboard a Russian rocket as a contingency plan against further delays in the launch systems being developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Boeing Co.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Thursday night carrying Israel's first lunar lander on a mission that if successful will make the Jewish state only the fourth nation to ever to achieve a controlled touchdown on the moon's surface.

In a remote island outpost on the edge of the Antarctic, hundreds of miles from the southern tip of Chile, scientists at a research base are scouring the ice for clues about everything from climate change to cures for cancer.

Opportunity, a remarkably durable NASA rover designed to roll along the surface of Mars for three months, has stopped communicating with Earth after 15 years of service, officials said on Wednesday, ending a mission that astounded the U.S. space agency.

A relatively complete skeleton of a long-necked, long-tailed plant-eater excavated from a rocky cliff above a Tanzanian river is providing insight into the early evolution of a dinosaur group that later included Earth's largest-ever land animals.

Scientists have discovered in 2.1-billion-year-old black shale from a quarry in Gabon the earliest evidence of a revolutionary development in the history of life on Earth, the ability of organisms to move from one place to another on their own.

The University of California will soon be granted a potentially valuable patent on the revolutionary gene-editing technology known as CRISPR, according to a document filed by the U.S. patent office on Friday.

A small tropical reef fish was able to recognize itself in a mirror, scientists said on Thursday in a finding that raises provocative questions about assessing self-awareness and cognitive abilities in animals.

The old cry of sailors sighting a whale's waterspout is taking on new meaning as scientists turn to drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, to gather samples of the fluids exhaled by the huge mammals and track their health.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Thursday night carrying Israel's first lunar lander on a mission that if successful will make the Jewish state only the fourth nation to achieve a controlled touchdown on the moon's surface.

A Japanese space probe named after a falcon, Hayabusa 2, has touched down on an asteroid more than 300 million km (186 million miles) from Earth on a mission to seek clues about the origins of life, Japan's space agency said on Friday.

NASA has warned SpaceX and Boeing Co of design and safety concerns for their competing astronaut launch systems, according to industry sources and a new government report, threatening the U.S. bid to revive its human spaceflight program later this year.

Scientists are providing new evidence to answer the longstanding question about why zebras have stripes. It appears stripes make terrible landing strips, bamboozling the fierce blood-sucking flies that try to feast on zebras and carry deadly diseases.

Israel's first spacecraft designed to land on the moon is set to blastoff from Florida on Thursday in the first privately-funded lunar mission, as the Jewish state seeks to become only the fourth nation to reach the surface of Earth's natural satellite.

NASA said on Friday it was weighing an option to buy two additional astronaut seats aboard a Russian rocket as a contingency plan against further delays in the launch systems being developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Boeing Co.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Thursday night carrying Israel's first lunar lander on a mission that if successful will make the Jewish state only the fourth nation to ever to achieve a controlled touchdown on the moon's surface.

In a remote island outpost on the edge of the Antarctic, hundreds of miles from the southern tip of Chile, scientists at a research base are scouring the ice for clues about everything from climate change to cures for cancer.

Opportunity, a remarkably durable NASA rover designed to roll along the surface of Mars for three months, has stopped communicating with Earth after 15 years of service, officials said on Wednesday, ending a mission that astounded the U.S. space agency.

A relatively complete skeleton of a long-necked, long-tailed plant-eater excavated from a rocky cliff above a Tanzanian river is providing insight into the early evolution of a dinosaur group that later included Earth's largest-ever land animals.

Scientists have discovered in 2.1-billion-year-old black shale from a quarry in Gabon the earliest evidence of a revolutionary development in the history of life on Earth, the ability of organisms to move from one place to another on their own.

The University of California will soon be granted a potentially valuable patent on the revolutionary gene-editing technology known as CRISPR, according to a document filed by the U.S. patent office on Friday.

A small tropical reef fish was able to recognize itself in a mirror, scientists said on Thursday in a finding that raises provocative questions about assessing self-awareness and cognitive abilities in animals.

The old cry of sailors sighting a whale's waterspout is taking on new meaning as scientists turn to drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, to gather samples of the fluids exhaled by the huge mammals and track their health.